In Hot Blood
by Walter the Wizard
Summary: Tanis' blood is on fire, and only Laurana can douse the flames. Too bad she is already dousing someone else's...


**In Hot Blood**

_by Walter the Wizard_

Tanis was walking down the hall at the end of which was Laurana's room, intent on apologizing to her for his immature behaviour, proclaiming his undying love and (hopefully) solving his "burning blood" problem. At the moment, his blood was burning so strongly that he found it difficult to walk in those tight pants of his. With any luck, he would be out of them soon enough.

Finally, he reached Laurana's door. Spitting on his hand, he smoothed his hair, then took a deep breath and knocked. No answer came. Tanis reckoned she might be already asleep, not having his burning blood problem. That was just as well; there wouldn't be a lot of clothes on her, Tanis thought with a grin as he knocked again. Still, there was no answer. Frowning, Tanis knocked more insistently, but he might as well have been knocking on the door of a crypt. Unfazed, Tanis raised his fist again when he heard sounds issuing from behind the door across and further down the hall. The door to Elistan's room.

Tanis cursed. Of course. The cleric. She had asked for a room near his, hadn't she? Damn priest…no doubt filling her head with talks of Paladine, and Mishakal's disks, and who knows what other rubbish, Laurana clinging on to every word, the silly girl. Well, Tanis wasn't going to allow it to continue. His blood had already reached boiling point, and something needed to be done right now. The half-elf walked resolutely over to Elistan's door and started pounding on it. To his surprise, the door gave in to his fist and swung open. Tanis's gaze happened to fall onto what he a second later realized had to be Elistan's wrinkled buttocks that were moving rather energetically. As his eyes took in the whole picture, he saw that the rest of Elistan was naked, too, and that he was lying atop Laurana who also appeared to be naked. Both were sweating profusely. The sounds Tanis had heard were the panting and moaning that accompanied the couple's vigorous lovemaking. It appeared that Tanis was not the only person at the Red Dragon whose blood was burning.

The elf maiden and the cleric didn't hear Tanis knock open the door because Elistan happened to emit a loud feral growl at the moment. Laurana might have seen him, but she didn't because her sight was obstructed by Elistan's beard. It was quite annoying, actually, having that beard swishing against her face, but the sensations down below more than compensated for it, and besides, it is completely irrelevant to the story. Tanis certainly didn't care about that problem of Laurana's as he slammed the door shut and strode away, fuming, his mind working on horrible ways of killing Elistan. The cursed cleric! Now Tanis knew what his true purpose in accompanying them to Tarsis had been. All his talk of the ancient gods had been nothing but subtle seduction. Tanis remembered with a rush of fury how Laurana's eyes always seemed to glaze over when Elistan was going on about Paladine. Even he, Tanis, had been taken in; at those times, he had even found the priest a tiny little bit attractive…but now that was, of course, forgotten. Tanis wished he had dropped a rock on Elistan's head back in the dwarven kingdom.

"Hey, Tanis!" Looking up, Tanis saw Flint walking toward him. "I thought yeh might be up here. Yeh won't believe it, but Caramon and Raistlin are goin' ter have an arm wrestlin' match, and I didn' want yeh to miss it. Who'd yeh think I should bet on?"

For a moment, Tanis was struck speechless, and then he exploded.

"An arm wrestling match!" he yelled, his blood now burning with rage. "How can you think of an arm wrestling match when that cleric is fornicating with Laurana?! Die, you worthless dwarf!" Whipping out his dagger, Tanis plunged it straight between Flint's eyes. The dwarf collapsed heavily onto the floor.

"What have I done?" whispered Tanis, his eyes going wide with horror. "Dear gods, I have killed my best friend! I don't want to live anymore!"

He bent down and tried to retrieve the dagger from Flint's forehead, but it was stuck in the bone, so Tanis had to put his foot on Flint's head and tug with all his might until the blade came free. Then he stabbed himself repeatedly in the chest, his burning blood spilling all over his dead friend and ruining an inexpensive carpet. He was dead a minute later.

His friends then had to reimburse the price of the carpet to the innkeeper, and a little while later the world was conquered by evil because with Tanis the adventuring party had lost their single brain cell and was quickly routed (except for Raistlin, but then, he was never really a member of that party). Drawing the conclusions is up to you, my little friends.


End file.
